


Breaking Tide

by sheron



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Heartbreak, POV Violet, Post-Season/Series 02, Post-Series, Surfing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-11 05:49:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7031602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheron/pseuds/sheron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Violet reflects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Tide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loverofstories](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loverofstories/gifts).



> This was written for the prompt by loverofstories in the SSR Confidential challenge.

Violet's life was perfect. 

She lived near Malibu beach, for crying out loud!

She had a great job: how many people got to say they saved lives every day? She had a house that she wasn't struggling to pay mortgage on: thank you, Aunt Eunice for a generous will.

She had a fiancé.

Had. The perfection crumbled like the lip of a wave opposed by strong onshore wind. Because she hadn't let it get further as soon as she knew she only had a part of him, and always would. It had been a clean break, and he'd cried, and she'd sobbed later, into her pillow at 4 am, alone in her room, knowing she had to get up in an hour for her shift and just not caring at all about the red eyes she'd be wearing that day. That had been self-indulgent. 

It surprised Violet how much harder it was to face work the next day knowing that she'd have to let everyone know the engagement had been called off. Regina didn't miss the opportunity to commiserate, loudly and exaggeratedly, with the hardships of a working girl as soon as Violet told her about the break-up. With her help the news circled the hospital within a day. Then it was over but for the endless "sorry"s and offers to take Violet out to lunch. Violet had been eating lunch just fine on her own for some twenty odd years, but apparently they all thought she'd start starving herself out of grief. If Peggy Carter could walk with a hole in her abdomen, then Violet would walk with a gaping hole in her chest, and she'd lift her chin up doing it. Regina invited her over for dinner, but Violet thought she just wanted to show off her new television.

She stood now, in front of the ocean. _You can't come to L.A. and not see the ocean_ , she'd said once, like a dope. Such a barney, not sensing the powerful undercurrent, not reading the strange tension between Daniel and the new woman for what it was. Peggy had been smooth as silk. It was only later, seeing the way Daniel had leaned towards Peggy, every fiber of his body ready and willing to jump to her smallest command that Violet had understood. He'd never looked at Violet like that. She'd never even known that much passion was in his constitution.

So, ocean, then. She loved to surf. She was looking for a challenge now, rather than a meek little wave: something to take her mind off things. The surfing crowd on the beach were out full-force, chasing the thick, long barrels over the low tide like a packs, but Violet felt apart from them. She was taken aback by her fear that she'd lose the friendships she'd built. She and Rose had been going swimming every other Saturday for months now, but Rose was Daniel's friend first. She'd been trying to talk Rose into joining her on Zuma's barrels, but after the breakup Rose hadn't phoned and Violet felt too awkward to show up at the Auerbach's Theatrical Agency to call on her.

Enough dilly-dallying. Tomorrow she'd phone Rose and find out where they stood. And Daniel, well, she was sure to run into him eventually. Ever since that SSR Agent had been shot, Violet's had been playing scheduling games so she wouldn't get assigned to him. She knew from the hospital gossip that either Daniel or Peggy were nearly constantly in that room, waiting for the man to wake up. His prognosis was solid. Violet wouldn't be able to avoid them forever and besides ducking them felt like an admission of fear. Violet had gotten good at facing fears since the first time she'd assisted on a gangrene case. A man had lost his arm, and Violet her lunch, but since that night few things scared her anymore. Certainly not facing a single man, even if he'd made her wipe-out in the biggest way.

The prismatic water built up to the beginning of a swell, carrying off thought outside of the current moment. Violet lay down on her surfing board in the cold water and paddled ahead into the open.

Her life stretched out in front of her like an endless surface of the ocean. Waves built, crested, and crashed against the shore. Salt water splashed her face. She was in a barrel now, with water like blue glass enclosing her on every side but through, cutting off every avenue except forward, forward. If she wavered, if she doubted herself for a second, the powerful force would sweep her off her feet and she'd be caught inside.

She stood.

She rode the wave.


End file.
